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Article Excerpt
There is a general belief that Lebanese-background students in Australia do not usually perform well at school. This study examines the school achievement of Lebanese-background students and the major motivational factors related to their achievement. A total of 271 Year Nine students (117 Lebanese-background and 154 non-Lebanese background) in three high schools in southwestern Sydney completed the Inventory of School Motivation and the Facilitating Conditions Questionnaire and this information was used to examine the students' motivational profiles and the salience of motivational and other background variables in predicting school achievement.
The study indicates that the Lebanese-background group is lower on variables which predict both their English and Science results, such as their valuing of education, and their perceived family and teacher support. The strongest predictors for achievement for the Lebanese-background group were competition, social concern, recognition, and token reward; however, these variables were not the strongest motivators for the students of Lebanese background. The variable most strongly valued by the Lebanese-background group was power, and that was found to be negatively related to their school achievement.
The significance of these findings is that the Lebanese-background group does not strongly value the positive predictors for school achievement and attention needs to be paid to enhance these among this group; and that the Lebanese-background group shows higher levels of the negative predictors and hence attention needs to be given to diminish the students' negative perspectives which predict lower academic performance.
Keywords
learning
multicultural
motivation
school achievement
cross-cultural
Non-English Speaking Background (NESB)
Introduction
At an aggregate level, young people from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) have higher post-compulsory education participation rates than Australian-born and English-speaking background (ESB) migrant groups (Williams, Long, Carpenter & Hayden, 1993). Moreover, it is found that students from NESB have a more positive view of their schooling experience (Ainley, 1995; Ainley & Perry, 1994; Sturman, 1997) and that the academic aspirations of students and parents of students from NESB appear to be higher than for ESB students and parents (Meade, 1983).
On the other hand, studies have also indicated that the apparent high rate of participation in higher education is not in itself a true indication of the success of all minority NESB students in schools and that the school performance of children frequently did not match their high aspirations or the high aspirations of parents (Teese, McLean, & Polese, 1993).While NESB students, on average, have higher Year Twelve participation rates, a larger proportion of them achieve low to medium Higher School Certificate scores in comparison to students whose parents are Australian born, and that English language proficiency appears to be a major determinant of achievement for NESB students. Studies (Meade, 1983; Marjoribanks, 1980; Taft, Strong & Fensham, 1971) also indicate that there are variations within and between ethnic groups in educational achievement; some minority groups perform better than others.
Sturman (1997) argues that one of the major limitations of reviews of research into the educational experiences of immigrant Australians is that most research combines immigrant-background students into very broad categories distinguishing between three blanket groups: Australian-born students; students born overseas in non-English-speaking countries; and students born overseas in English-speaking countries. The problem with this type of categorisation is that there can be variations and differences within a group that are sometimes greater than the differences between groups. For instance, within the group of students born in non-English-speaking countries, Sturman points out that there can be differences in parents' aspirations and students' achievement. There are also differences within groups of students who are born in Australia but whose parents come from non-English speaking countries. While there are Asian students who have difficulty with English and do not satisfy their educational aspirations, there are many Asian students who are academically highly successful.
Therefore, in examining the school achievement of students from different ethnic and migrant backgrounds, it is important to look at specific groups of students and examine some of the circumstances associated with their education in order to understand the factors behind their achievement or lack of it.
Among the groups that have high academic aspirations but low school achievement are the Lebanese-background students (Horvath, 1979; Kalantzis, Cope & Slade, 1989; Meade, 1983). These studies seem to be the most recent and only available data we have on the achievement of Lebanese-background students in schools, although the apparent lack of achievement of these students remains a problem. In qualitative research related to this project (Suliman, 2001), the author found that schools that have a high percentage of Lebanese-background students have expressed their concern about the lack of motivation and low achievement of Lebanese-background students. The two main problems identified by principals and teachers at these schools were an apparent lack of motivation on the part of Lebanese-background students and an apparent lack of support by parents for the education of their children. Both of these factors were believed to have a negative impact on students' school achievement. There was also a prevailing assumption among school administrators that parents are disinterested in what goes on in the school and do not show support for the school or for the education of their children. The concern of principals was how to engage the Lebanese-background students in the process of education and motivate them to achieve better results, and how to gain the support and positive participation of parents in school meetings and in the general educational challenges that face schools and parents. Therefore, lack of motivation on the part of the students and the parents was considered a major cause for the relatively poor school achievement of Lebanese-back-ground students.
While it might be accepted that lack of motivation may have a negative impact on the school achievement of Lebanese-background students, there is inadequate research data to support this belief. There is little empirical evidence on the nature and range of the motivational goals held by Lebanese-background students and the relationship of these goals to their academic achievement. There is also little evidence as to whether Lebanese students are individualist and more Western goal-oriented or collectivist and more traditionalist oriented; and whether their goal orientation is in harmony with the goals fostered in schools or not. We know little about other factors that are believed to impact on school achievement, such as the students' self esteem, their sense of competence, their sense of purpose for schooling and their valuing of education. We have no data to indicate the kind of encouragement and support or lack of it that they receive from parents, teachers and peers and how they feel about school. Although some studies in Australia and the United States have examined the motivational goals of students from different cultural background (Maehr, 1998; Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Maehr & Pintrich, 1995; McInerney, 1990; 1992; McInerney & Swisher, 1995; McInerney, Roche, McInerney & Marsh, 1997), there has been no research in this area concerning students from a Lebanese background.
Hence, this research sets out to fill the gap in available knowledge by examining the school achievement of Lebanese-background students and, in particular, to identify some of the major factors contributing to their achievement or lack of it. In order to do this, we addressed the following research questions:
* What is the level of school achievement of Lebanese-background students in comparison to other students in high schools?
* What are the motivational goals of Lebanese-background students?
* Which goals are predictive of students' school achievement?
In order to better understand the factors behind the achievement patterns of Lebanese-background students and their goal orientation, it is important to give some background information about the Lebanese in Australia in the context of their immigration and social experiences as well as review the goal theory of achievement motivation.
Background
Lebanese immigrants in Sydney
The history of Lebanese settlement in Australia goes back to the late nineteenth century, with the latest phase of immigrants arriving from 1975 onwards as a result of the civil war in Lebanon. The period 1971 to 1977 saw the heaviest influx of Lebanese immigrants to Sydney. Chain migration was the major pattern, with extended families and sometimes almost whole villages migrating together. Most of these immigrants settled in Sydney bringing the number of Lebanese-born immigrants in Sydney to 50,000 by 1996 and making them the sixth largest immigrant group in Sydney. More than half of the total number of Lebanese who arrived during this period was Muslims: sixty per cent, approximately 14,000 people (Humphrey, 1998).
The Lebanese immigrants came to Australia with the hope of returning to Lebanon once the war was over, and therefore saw themselves as temporary residents and were not very serious about finding jobs, learning English or improving their economic and educational status. There was a high rate of unemployment and considerable settlement problems among these people. Many of these arrivals had disrupted education and work experience prior to immigration, due to the civil war. They also had little economic security and limited literacy ability in Arabic.
The situation was made worse with the depressed economic situation in Australia at the time of their arrival: 'The economic situation in Australia at the time with a decline in the number of jobs in manufacturing industries, together with discrimination in recruitment by Australian employers made it harder for these people, with limited skills and experience, to find work' (Clyne & Kipp, 1996, p. 23). Moreover, the influx of Lebanese migrants in big numbers over a period of about six years...
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